Writer's Block

John walked home with bags of groceries in his arms, whistling 'The Radetzky March' so badly, that he seemed to be singing a completely different tune. Kicking a can out of his way, he thought of what Sarah might be doing at home. 

'Probably cooking up a fresh plot for a new book,' he thought. He had never been much of a reader, but Sarah's books had always been the stuff to draw him in. Against his insistence, Sarah had begun to call him her 'unofficial editor and critic'.

"But I don't even read books!" he had said one day, exasperated. "I don't have the appropriate experience, nor the dignity to comment on your stories, Sarah!" 

"But that's precisely why you should help me in writing my stories!" she had argued, hiding a smile behind her mock anger. "You're one of the common people. You're really useful to me, because you provide another angle to my stories!" 

"I don't get it." John had said, secretly amused that he had been called 'one of the common people'.

"Just forget it, " she had replied, and had continued her work.

John smirked lightly. He remembered that it was Sarah's turn to pay the rent. She would easily do so; her bank account was refilled every month by the books she wrote and published. John had been jealous of her, though he hid it. It wasn't fair, he thought, that he being the male in the house, should have to struggle to pay the rent. 

As he neared his apartment, he thought he heard someone singing something. It was a little faint, but got louder and louder as he walked. 

Slowly, he realized that this was no song.

Someone was screaming.

Panicking slightly, he increased his pace and sprinted to his apartment. There was no mistake; a woman was screaming. A woman whom he wildly suspected to be his very own Sarah.

Dropping his bag of groceries, he sprinted up the flight of stairs. He burst into his apartment, number 0999, and saw a horrible sight. 

The sofas were upturned, and plates were smashed on the ground. Chairs were broken, and the kitchen was ruined, dismantled. Cabinet doors hung dismally from their pivots. Framed photographs lay smashed on the floor; photos of Sarah were torn in half.

He ran into Sarah's room, and saw the same destruction in there. A trembling Sarah lay there, sobbing on the ground. John moved immediately towards here, but she got up, and pointed a knife at him.

"Sarah..." He gulped. "What happened?"

"Just-just stay away from me!" she spoke, coughing and spluttering out her words. Black tears ran down her pale face, and her eyes...

Here eyes were completely pitch black. There was no trace of light in there. 

"Sarah, tell me what happened."

John was afraid. Really afraid.

"It's eating me from inside..." Sarah twitched abnormally. "It's eating me..."

"What, what do you mean?" asked John, thoroughly spooked. The knife was still in Sarah's hand, and he didn't dare move lest she attacked. 

"I can't write anything..." She dropped the knife and stared at her trembling hand with fear. 

"Sarah," John said, "I want you to calm dow-" 

But he could say no more, as Sarah moved swiftly towards the apartment window, clutching her head with her red hands.

"SARAH!" John yelled, but he couldn't stop her. 

She had jumped.

***

As he stepped outside his apartment, he felt that everything was a blur. The only clear thing was the lifeless body of a close friend, which lay desolate on the ground, there for all to see. 

He didn't want to look at her, but he had to. One possibility wandered there at the back of his head, which he didn't dare consider: What if she was alive?

Surely death was better than the torture he had just witnessed in the apartment room?

As he walked closer to her, he observed one sickening thing about her head: 

It was as if someone had crushed a block of concrete on it. 

And he cried. 

For that was the only thing he could do.